Introducing AI Formulas & Calculations: Natural Language Data Analysis

At Gigasheet, we believe AI data analysis has the potential to help millions of people get answers from their data. Today we’re excited to unveil our latest feature: Ask AI for easier formulas and calculations, designed to simplify how you build and manage formulas in your data analysis. With the new Ask AI feature, you can now describe the result you want in plain, natural language, and Gigasheet will generate the formula syntax for you. It’s fast, intuitive, and completely aligned with our three core design principles: scalability, transparency, and security.

How To Use Ask AI Formulas & Calculations

Using AI Formulas is as simple as describing your task in plain language. Whether you're new to data manipulation or a seasoned pro looking to save time, the process is intuitive:
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First, Describe Your Task: Start by entering a plain English description of what you’d like to accomplish. Here are a few examples:

• “Strip the leading +1 from phone numbers.”
• “Add 10% to the Price column.”
• “Combine First and Last Name with a space between them.”
• “Extract the year from the 'Date' column.”
• “If phone is blank and email is blank then mark as BAD else GOOD”
  
  Tip: For best results, refer to columns by their exact names especially if you have a number of columns with similar names and data (e.g., 'Phone 1' or 'Final Price'). This ensures the AI can clearly map your request to the right data. You can always edit the formula manually if it needs tweaking.

Next Review the AI-Generated Formula: Once you describe your task, Gigasheet’s AI will instantly translate your input into a formula. The formula syntax is fully visible, giving you complete transparency to verify it aligns with your expectations. For instance:

Here we input: “Strip the leading +1 from phone numbers” and the AI generates the formula:
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SUBSTITUTE(Phone, "+1", "")

Preview the Results: Before applying the formula, Gigasheet shows you a preview of the results using sample rows from your dataset. This step helps you ensure the output matches your intentions before running the transformation across your data.

Apply with Confidence: After verifying the formula and results, apply it to your data. Whether it’s 10 rows or 10 billion, Gigasheet processes it seamlessly.

Iterate and Adjust (if needed): If the results aren’t quite right, you can refine your input description or tweak the generated formula manually, or reprompt and click Generate Formula again. This allows for a highly flexible and interactive workflow.

What Sets Gigasheet AI Formulas Apart

Gigasheet’s AI Formulas are built with our design philosophy at the core, ensuring they’re not just powerful, but aligned with what matters most to you:

1. Works at Scale: Like everything in Gigasheet, AI Formulas work flawlessly with massive datasets. Whether you’re dealing with millions or billions of rows, the Ask AI feature can handle it, ensuring reliable performance at scale.
2. Transparent & Explainable: Unlike opaque systems, our formula builder puts transparency front and center. Users can see exactly what the AI has generated, verify the logic, and preview results—all before applying changes. No more guessing how your data will transform.
3. Secure by Design: Security is non-negotiable. To keep your data safe, your data set isn't sent to external systems or LLMs. The Ask AI feature only uses the LLM to generate formula syntax, ensuring your sensitive information stays private and secure.

Real-World Applications

Here are a few examples of how the AI Formulas feature can simplify your workflow:

• Data Cleaning:
  • Remove prefixes check formats of phone numbers.
  • Standardize text capitalization for names or addresses.
  • Clean up whitespace or special characters from any field.
• Custom Calculations:
  • Add markup or discounts to pricing fields.
  • Compute profit margins directly in your dataset.
  • Calculate new fields, e.g., Total Sales = Price × Quantity.
• Data Preparation:
  • Reformat dates into a consistent structure (e.g., YYYY-MM-DD).
  • Split full names into first and last name columns.
  • Combine multiple columns into a single concatenated field for export.
• Data Binning:
  • Flag rows that meet specific thresholds or conditions.
  • Generate unique identifiers by combining fields like Name and ID.

And the list goes on! We're always finding new ways to apply the Ask AI feature and we hope you'll give it a try. We find even with occasional prompt engineering, it's often much quicker than writing spreadsheet formulas manually.

What’s Next?

The Ask AI feature is just the beginning of how we’re bringing advanced AI to the world of big data analysis. Stay tuned as we continue innovating to make Gigasheet the most powerful and user-friendly tool for analyzing and transforming massive datasets.

Ready to experience it yourself? Try Gigasheet now and explore the future of AI-assisted data analytics.

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